Chapter 09

“Ugh my head hurts.” I said to myself as I was waking up.

Whoosh!

“Oh, thank god you’re alive!” came an unfamiliar feminine voice. She spoke the words at a normal conversational volume, but for some reason it pierced my ears like a sonic scream from my old nemesis Feedback.

“Please for the love of all things good in this world, don’t talk so loud.”

“I’m sorry Mr. Celerity. I just needed to thank you.”

“Thank me? For what?” I finally looked at the person who caused my head to pound harder with each word spoken. This woman standing in front of him at a little over five and a half feet tall with a lithe build and shoulder-length flowing blonde hair. The thing that stuck out most was her eyes. They were blue eyes with streaks of yellow in them looking as if lightning was coursing through them.

“Um… You are kind of staring.” The seemingly shy girl said while blushing.

After she said that I realized I had been staring right at her. Shaking my head to clear it and trying to get the headache out by force, I noticed something else.

“Why are you wearing Streak’s suit?”

“Well… that’s because I am The Streak.” She seemed more embarrassed by that than my staring.

Doing the only thing I could think of, I stared at her again. This time my stare was to accomplish a goal, to see if she was telling the truth. This time she stared back at me only turning slight shades of red.

“You’re serious?”

“I am.”

“How?”

“Items.”

“Mask?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“People tend to leave me alone if I look like a male.”

“Fair enough.”

The conversation started at a normal speed, then progressively got to the levels only a speedster could achieve. I figured that would for sure reveal she was lying, but she seemed to be honest. Only one last thing could determine if she was really who she claimed to be.

“When I was falling, where did you say you learned to do the move used to rescue me?”

“Comic book.”

“Fine, you seem to be telling the truth, but can you prove it? Use the item.”

She lifted up her full-face mask. As it slid into its proper place, her body changed, she didn’t grow any taller, but her figure became more masculine.

“See now I look like the Streak that you know.”

I just blinked at her slowly, she did indeed look like the speedster I met earlier. However, there was something strange about this illusion.

“You still sound like a woman.”

“Ah right almost forgot to hit this…” she pushed something at the spot where her headgear met her torso armor, button. “Better?”

It was strange to hear a sudden change in her voice, but as she was speaking her voice dropped a couple of octaves now sounding like a guy.

“That’s just weird.”

“Yeah it takes some getting used to.”

Realizing that it was cold I looked around and I wasn’t where I thought I should be.

“Um. Streak… Where are we?”

“Oh right, I was asked to come see if you were awake, but you side-tracked me.”

She waved her hand motioning me to follow her, we started to go down a flight of stairs. As familiar sounds hit my ears, I thought I had a vague idea of where we were, and as we rounded the corner at the end of the stairs, I saw someone I knew.

“Justin, how is the youth of today doing?”

“Dude, why do you have to sound so old.” The young bored teen kept coming through on his stereotype.

I leaned over onto the counter, so I could look casual. I looked left and right before I motioned the kid closer. He looked very hesitant, but I kept waving my hand until he leaned in with a sigh.

“What?”

“Is the guy back there the real Mr. Chippy Chop?”

He leaned back in his chair and didn’t answer my question.

“Fine can I at least get one of the world class Mr. Chippy Chop welcomes?”

“Welcome to Mr. Chippy Chop’s Chopstick Delights Chinese Food and Dry Cleaning, while we clean your tie, enjoy our Pad Thai”

“Wow that was kind of lame.” Streak said.

“What are you talking about? All of the welcomes are pure gold. It’s all in the way he delivers it.”

“Whatever man.”

We resumed the walk leading back to the super-secret meeting place. I still couldn’t figure out if this was a “Landrosturant”, or a “Resturomat”. I guess it didn’t really matter to anyone but me, and I needed to just figure this out.

As we started to walk into the kitchen area the same elderly gentleman was in the process of making a meal. Right before I could give the fake hat tip Streak spoke again.

“Mr. Chop.” She gave him a slight nod, and I had the biggest grin on my face. She had a similar sense of humor!

We walked through the double doors leading to the Super Delivery HQ, and there were the entirety of the Honor Guard and the former nemeses. They stopped talking as we walked in and I took a seat. I knew what was coming, so I took a deep breath and tried to relax a little before looking to my right and seeing David I nodded to him, and without fail he started it off.

“How could you be so stupid!?”

“That was extremely reckless.” Richard continued the berating.

“I have been many places, and seen many things, that was by far the dumbest thing I have seen someone do.” Hopper always said something along those lines.

“You got lucky leveling when you did, but you cannot keep behaving like that.” It’s weird getting a stern talking to from someone you have punched so many times.

“I enjoyed the show.” Prometheus, ever the word smith.

“We won, but you could have been killed man. Or worse.” Lucky was… serious? I did not expect that, but his words seemed to hurt the most.

“I’m sorry, I truly mean it, but I felt I was the only one who could have taken him with minimal damage.”

“I could not have taken him on myself,” Mastermind started,” and Prometheus would have burned the city to make sure he won.”

“Exactly. While I feel bad for how I handled it, I would do it again and again. I would also like to remind everyone there was a chance we wouldn’t have had to fight if it wasn’t for Mr. Edison over here.”

“You are right, but it is in the past and has already happened, we should focus on the future.”

“What do you mean Mastermind?” the distaste from Hopper was obvious to everyone.

“What do we do from here? I was going to contact you all eventually anyway. Do any of you want to join our delivery company?”

“What?” I asked. “After all that you still just want to deliver packages?”

“Of course.”

“We proved today that we can still go toe-to-toe with the Bridgers and you want to ship their stuff?”

“Actually, that was two days ago.”

“TWO DAYS!?” I was shocked, I had been asleep for two days?

“Yeah man, you had us worried your energy bottomed out twice in less than five minutes. How long has it been that you completely drained your energy?” David seemed to be genuinely worried.

“A while, but that doesn’t make any…” I trailed off as I remembered the buff I had from being “In the Zone”

“What is it?” Richard asked.

“I forgot I was ‘In the Zone’”.

“Well then that explains everything!” Hopper said breaking the awkward silence that was about to swallow our conversation.

“I’m confused. What’s that mean?” Piped up the feminine voice of “The Streak”.

“It let’s me boost my max speed, but I suffer double the negative effects when I lose focus on my objective.”

“Oh, but how does that explain how you were unconscious for two days?”

“I got the buff right after we first met.”

“So, you can keep the buff up for at least three hours?” she asked.

“Yeah, my energy costs are halved, and the effects from draining energy completely is harsh. When you think about it, I drained it twice, so that’s basically like draining my energy completely from full four times in less than five minutes.”

“Two days was lucky then.” Mastermind basically whispered.

I nodded.

Silence permeated the room as people relived the event.

“Wait!” Lucky yelled cutting the silence with the efficiency of a chainsaw through butter. “You leveled up!”

“I did, but I am not using any points yet, at our level it will take a while to level, so I need to seriously think about this.”

“Wise decision.” Mastermind agreed. “I can help with that if you’d like.”

“Maybe later, now we have some choices to make.”

It was Mastermind’s turn to nod.

“We can of course continue this shipping business. It can make us all a steady income.”

“I’m not saying we shouldn’t, but I think we should do more.” Placing emphasis on the last word let everyone know what I was implying, but I said it anyway, “I think we should get back in the game.”

“How can we compete with the Bridgers. They get twice as many power points!”

“I know David, but there is something else I have to tell you all.” Everyone looked at me, waiting for what I was going to say. “I got a power point on this level.”

Everyone but Streak looked shocked.

“You are level 247, right?” Mastermind asked

“Yeah, I shouldn’t have gotten a power point until next level.”

“Wait, you guys don’t get one every level?” Streak asked.

Heads shaking no, from all of us. She went still deep in thought.

“Anyway, I don’t know why, but it seems that we will now earn a point every level now. I can’t be one hundred percent on that though.”

“We will have to wait for someone to level to find out.” Prometheus said without any hostility, for the first time ever I’d assumed.

“Does that mean we can get different powers?” Lucky asked with a gleam of hope in his eyes.

“I can’t answer that Wayne.” I told him, knowing he would love to get a regen power.

“We keep getting side-tracked. What are we going to do?” Hopper tried getting our conversation back on the right track.

No one said anything for a long while and I took this time to make sure I could put the forming plan into action.

“Before the Bridgers, we had a plan and we started to put the wheels into motion. We were going to turn ‘The Honor Guard’ from a party into a Team. I say we do that now.”

“Really?” Mastermind started laughing. “And... Ha... I suppose you … ha… have the fifty-thousand thread to do it?” He finished by wiping a tear off of his face.

“What day of the week is it?”

“Sunday, why?” David asked.

“Then this doesn’t matter, we should all get some rest and meet up tomorrow.”

Nods and small noises of agreement met my words.

As everyone left, I was doing some math in my head, checking it over and over again, making sure it was right.

“Are you ok?”

After a slight jump in my seat I realized The Streak was still in the room.

“Ahem… Yeah sorry just lost in thought.”

“Yeah I get that way too.”

“Glad that I’m not the only one.”

She didn’t respond or make any attempt to leave the room, but she looked like she wanted to say something.

“What is it?” I asked her, ducking my head a little to make eye contact.

“Could… could I talk to you for a bit?”

“Sure, but we have to get changed first.”

“What? Why?” she looked more than a little confused.

“Well I have been unconscious for two days. Having superspeed increases your metabolism. I’m starving and walking through that kitchen didn’t help one bit.”

“Right I’ll get changed then.”

The best thing about being a speedster is that no time at all passes when you do mundane things like change clothes.

“So, where do you want to eat?” I asked the woman who was now in full street clothes and I had no doubts about her gender.

“Literally anywhere but here. It has to be some kind of health code violation to have a combination like this.”

“There’s this great pizza place I know of, actually before I recommend that, can you run on water yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Shoot then that’s out.”

“I know of this little mom and pop diner on the other side of the city, they have the best burgers and shakes.”

“There’s something you need to know about me.” I said with total seriousness.

“What is it?” She looked taken aback by my tone.

“If you tell me the best burger is anywhere besides Bobby’s Burgers, and you are wrong, we will have words.”

She started laughing a little just to break the tension, “I was talking about that place.”

Smiling at the woman I realized something.

“Where are my manners. I’m Ray Stevenson, and just incase Ray is NOT short for Raymond.”

“Okay… I’m Megan Moore.”

“Nice to meet you Megan, now let’s get going.” I held out my arm for her to grab and we stepped out into the evening night.

We made it across town at a speedster’s walking pace, meaning we were there in about a minute.

Walking in I saw the former villain turned chef in the back cooking his heart out.

“Hey Bobby!” I yelled out to him.

“Ray! How you doing man?” The slightly obese cook asked.

“Been doing alright I guess, Bobby this is...”

“Meg! How are you sweetie?”

“I’m doing better now that I’m about to get one of your burgers.”

“The usual?” Bobby asked looking at both of us.

“Sounds good to me.” I said

“Of course, Bobby.” Meg agreed and led me to a booth away from the door.

Sitting down across from each other I looked over the weird girl.

“Alright I gotta ask. Why the guy form?”

“I figured that’d come up eventually. Well where I’m from, this is an escape for some, a job for others like me. If I’m constantly getting hassled to join teams just because I’m a woman, I wouldn’t be able to get things done.”

“I don’t understand much of that, but I get some of it.”

A slightly awkward silence followed my words. I don’t get these Bridgers sometimes. They say and do weird things, but aside from the ones that were hear right after the bridge none of them knew of The Honor Guard.

“How did you know who we were. Not many Bridgers know us, just the ones we trained.”

“Oh, that’s easy. I love the lore in games.”

I sent her a look that I hoped would convey the message, ‘I don’t get it.’

“Sorry, I have been to several worlds, and love to learn about their histories. Helps me adjust better.”

“Ah, so all of you can just hop dimensions like Hopper does?”

“In a way, but we require devices to do it, he can’t just do it.”

Just as she finished Bobby came to our table with our food, I had three fully loaded bacon cheeseburgers and two baskets of loaded fries. Megan had almost the exact same, but It was two burgers and one basket of fries.

“Wow a girl that can eat!”

“Yeah trying to keep it on the lighter side.”

I looked over and Bobby was pulling up a chair. He leaned in real close.

“I saw what happened on the news. You two did good work.”

I looked over at Megan and she didn’t look startled, so I wasn’t going to press the issue.

“It took a lot out of me. I just woke up a couple of hours ago.” I said clearing my throat.

“I bet, but you saved a couple hundred people, one of which was my niece, Hayden.”

“Hayden is your niece? Small world. How is she?”

“She’s alive thanks to you. This meal is on me, and I got you guys some milkshakes for when you’re done.” With that he got up and returned to the kitchen.

“Bobby knows about you too?”

“Yeah, he used to be a villain of mine, but I helped convince him that he should follow his dream. I even helped get him a loan for this place. He didn’t charge me food for five years.”, I almost had a tear in my eye remembering the good times.

“He helped me get started in the hero business.”

“He’s a good guy who makes great food.”

“You can say that again.”

We devoured our meals in, well silence isn’t the right word. We didn’t talk, but our eating made a patron or two leave. Before long we had our promised milkshakes in front of us, and it was time to do what we came here for.”

“What did you want to talk about?”

“I wanted to know if you are serios about your team?”

“Very. I reached hero tier seven after everything that happened. So I will have the funds for it tomorrow.”

“What?” She nearly spit out her milkshake.

“Getting the top spot in rescues helps, but to be a good hero you should always help not for the money. It should just be instinctual.”

She looked at me for a few long moments before she nodded.

“Would you like to join?”

She just blatantly stared now. She stared so long I waved my hand in front of her face to make sure she was alive.

“Sorry, uh, yeah I would love to. I do have one question though.”

“What’s that?”

“Are you going to be the leader?”

“Not exactly, I have some ideas…” I said with a grin.